Trout season?

Have we reached the moment where Trout could be caught?

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Canberra Kangaroos	21	9	.711	—	164.0	103.9
Old Detroit Wolverines	20	10	.683	0.8	184.3	122.7
Haviland Dragons	20	11	.638	2	133.4	95.8
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	18	14	.576	3.9	173.6	144.3
Portland Rosebuds	17	14	.541	5.1	136.8	125.6
Flint Hill Tornadoes	16	14	.519	5.8	127.4	125.1
Peshastin Pears	13	18	.422	8.7	126.7	146.4
Kaline Drive	13	18	.417	8.9	138.2	168.5
Cottage Cheese	12	18	.394	9.5	112.0	140.6
D.C. Balk	8	22	.275	13.1	113.0	185.1

Canberra: DNP, (-1) – (-5). (.195, .377, .439; 7 ip, 2 er).  Man, these Kangaroos are something. They have waited so long to lead the EFL and now they will not give it back.  I wonder what the league record is for most days less than 1 game ahead without falling into second place.  The ‘Roos have to be approaching it, if they haven’t passed it already.  And look at how they did it Sunday:  Their superstar Bryce Harper went hitless, but had a 1.000 OBP in 7 trips to the plate (6 walks and one HBP).  Mix in sparkling pitching and you have a team that hangs around .700 and won’t let go.

Old Detroit: “L,” 6 – 3. (.275, .326, .550; 4 ip, 1 er). OK, so Harper posts a 1.000 OBP (and OPS) in 7 plate appearances.  My man Manny takes a different path: two homers (one a grand slam) and a walk in 5 PA.   Sure, Harper’s runs created per game were infinite. But Manny’s OPS was 2.600.

Haviland: L, 0 – 5.  (.114, .184, .114; 2.7 ip, 2 er).  Jake Lamb got half the Tornados’ hits (2) in 1/7th of the team’s at bats (5).  It’s funny how this league works.  Before April 30 my gut was telling me the Dragons had already won the pennant race.  They just felt so irresistible, indominatible… Then for a few days there, as the Wolverines ascended back into the thick of the race, it felt like the W’s were unstoppable, would produce lopsided victories with daily EMD’s — just because they did it three or four times in a week. But what’s really happening now is the most dogged defense of first place in the history of the league — the Marsupial Way, or something.

Pittsburgh: “L”, 6 – 1. (.279, .340, .372; 14.3 ip, 2 er).  Today mlbtraderumors reported a growing controversy over whether the Angels should trade Mike Trout.  The Angels don’t seem to be inclined to deal Trout despite the glaring fact that they are criminally wasting him, and in the process ignoring an opportunity to replenish the bare shelves of their franchise. You’d think the Alleghenys would trade Trout first, since he’s only theirs for a few more months.  But they already restocked their barren shelves with the Shelby Miller deal.  And anyway, Trout poked along yesterday at his .833 OPS rate. Who’d want him?

The real superstar yesterday on the A’s has a name that begins with A:   Alvarez! (1.833 OPS, exactly 1.000 more than Trout).

Aha! You thought I was going to say Altuve, didn’t you?  But he only OPSed 1.417.  That’s not even .600 better than Trout.

 

Portland: W (-1), L 0; (-8) – (-2). (.229, .341, .286;  0.7 ip, 3 er).  Ooooh. Kyle Lobstein uncorked a quadruple-plus chulk yesterday to sabotage the Rosebud’s bed of roses.

Flint Hill:  W, 6 – 3.  (.286, .333, .679;  20.7 ip, 6 er).  Today’s cause for Wolverine envy is John Jaso, who was supposed to be a W right now.  He went 3 for 4 with a double and a homer to lead the powerful Tornado attack.

I really should write more about the young Johnsons’ teams. And maybe I soon shall.  Their orbits are getting closer and closer. If the sibling franchises collide there should be plenty of fireworks to cover.

Peshastin: W 0, L (-1); (-3) – (-5).  (.128, .186, .308; 12.7 ip, 5 er). Javier Baez hit a walk-off homer yesterday. For the Cubs it meant their 7th straight win and a 24-6 record.  For the Pears, stuck in an EFL cosmic warp, it meant a walk-off negative loss.  The effect is similar, sort of a mirror-image of the real world. Perhaps this is how a universe made of anti-matter works.  Maybe our league is a real league in that world.

Kaline: W, 6  – 5. (.271, .364, .500;  0.3 ip, 0 er.) Thanks to Yoenis Cespedes and Brad Miller and their homerun-hitting ways, the Mets passed the Nationals in the NL East. In the EFL, the effect was the Drive passing the Cheese.  That seems pretty exciting to me, but I don’t know, for some reason the rest of the world ignored it. 

Cottage: W 1, L 1 ;  9 – 12. (.250, .270, .389; 10.7 ip, 11 er). Every so often I find in the back of the fridge some pretty nasty cottage cheese.  Like this morning. I mean, at first glance it looks ok, with Salvy Perez, Yasy Puig and Jony Schoop all OPSing well over 1.000. But then you see the entire rest of the team is covered in green stuff.  Kendall Graveman chulks, and Yankees Severino and Shreve can’t stop the decay.  Six Cheese trudge to the plate multiple times and come back with no hits.  Yecch.  Let’s put the lid back on this one before we make ourselves sick.

DC: DNP, 1 – (-5). (.222, .364, .278;  9.3 ip, 4 er).  Consider these two May batting lines:

Player 1:  19 AB, 6 hits, .316, .435, .421. OPS: .856.

Player 2:  19 AB, 6 hits, .316, .458, .632. OPS: 1.090

No — neither of these gentlemen is Welington Castillo. He has a May OPS that fits right into the DC elite (.924) but takes a different shape.  Nor do y0u see the line of the recently-demoted Scott Schebler, whose May 1.111 OPS wasn’t good enough to stay in the majors in the mighty Balk organization — even though it leads the team.

OK, the top line is that of budding superstar Corey Seager. He must be fun to own right now. But, frankly, we all saw this coming.  It’s why he was the number 1 Rookie Draft pick.

But I’m willing to bet that the Balk Brass were the only ones in the league to foresee this kind of performance from the other man, listed just below Seager on the DC roster: former prospect Brett Wallace.   We will have to keep an eye on the Balk, already giving the Braves fits and still within striking range of the Cheese.